“Here at the magic hour
Time and eternity
Mingle a moment in chorus
Here at the magic hour
Bright is the mystery
Plain is the beauty before us
Could this beauty be for us?”
~ from “The Magic Hour” by Andrew Peterson and Don Chaffer
Dipping her toes into the water, Lanier, wearing huge movie star sunglasses to match her Grace Kelly-style bathing suit, sipped her frozen coffee concoction and wondered out loud if 18th century Gothic novelist Ann Radcliff had ever been discussed in a poolside setting.
“Maybe not since the 1930s,” said Jenijoy, who had orchestrated the afternoon at a friend’s pool for our little book club.
“I can’t even see Laura and Lanier over there because of Rachel’s hat!” interjected Louise. The hat, a big white floppy affair, made Rachel look like a “moonflower,” Lanier said.
But it wasn’t Rachel’s fault—Jenijoy is the one who supplied the sun hats. And fluffy white beach towels. And 1960s loungey type music and frozen grapefruit aperitifs and a table set with vintage linens and glassware. And no afternoon at the pool is complete without giant pink caladium leaves and ferns floating elegantly in the water.
We are a quirky assemblage of six that sets out to make pimento cheese sandwiches and 95 degree heat somewhat glamorous. We try, anyways.
Once a month—come power outages or kids with the flu or broken heaters (yes, all of these)—we find a way to gather together in our fussiest outfits and revel in each other’s company. We are one group of gals determined to discuss literature.
Why do we do it? Why not just wear sweats and drink wine, or meet at a restaurant?
In his latest book, Donald Miller explains that in novels or movies, good stories have memorable scenes. Fictional couples don’t break up in a Starbucks; they break up standing on a sidewalk in the rain. Miller says real life’s good stories have memorable scenes, too. In a way, our book club is making good stories—or good scenes, at least.
“When we look back on our lives, what we will remember are the crazy things we did, the times we worked harder to make a day stand out,” Miller writes.
And so we’ve had a fall picnic in a field with roast chicken under a silver venison dome, coconut cream pie on Lanier’s front porch, and strawberry soup under the canopy of a venerable old oak tree. We’ve dressed up (vaguely) as characters in Alice in Wonderland and worn berets and scarves after reading French swashbucklers and been slightly embarrassed when the UPS man comes to the door.
After years of meeting, certain themes emerge. Cream, in some form or fashion, at every meal. The lipstick break between luncheon and tea. The baskets and bags of stuff we haul in, things we’re loaning out or need to return. And laughing at our ridiculous selves, especially after three or four stiff drinks—of black, fully caffeinated tea.
I’ve been thinking a lot about story-making lately, both in my writing and in my life. I want to create good stories for my family. I can at least cultivate interruptibility, something that doesn’t come naturally to me but I’m working on. I want more nights stargazing instead of watching TV, more turning up the volume on a song and stopping to dance with a child in the kitchen, more eye-to-eye and cheek-to-cheek. I want to sacrifice a patch of our lawn for a fire pit when the weather turns cool, so we can sit and make s’mores and maybe even sing a little.
Making room for magic and whimsy can easily, so easily, fall by the wayside. I get caught up in routine, in details, in an overdose of order. That’s when the boredom creeps in, all the striving toward the average, the acceptable. That’s when we die inside, just a little. We weren’t made for the humdrum, not by a long shot.